


One More Minute

by sobefarrington



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 22:03:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sobefarrington/pseuds/sobefarrington





	One More Minute

Clint tucked one of her short, redbrown locks behind her ear, letting his fingers retrace their tracks before dragging the pad of his thumb across her cheek to dry the tears.

His tears.

They had allowed him a private moment with her before the viewing, before they rolled the love of his life out for all to observe. The thought of a room full of friends and family staring at her seeing first hand how their enemies had won. His stomach turned as he wiped his own eyes.

Clint was an emotional wreck, spending his days and nights in a state of anger that would quickly dissipate so he could be overwhelmed with sadness and actual physical pain. A pain the likes of which he’d never felt before. A pain that crippled him, sending him crashing to the ground and quivering with fear and grief.

Fury told him it would fade, the pain and the grief, that it was just a matter of time. As much as he tried, Clint couldn’t envision a time when he wouldn’t hurt as much as he did in that moment.

He held her hands in his, the tattoo of her name on his wrist touching the one she’d gotten of his. Unison. It was how they worked and how they lived. They were good on their own, but they were their best together. This would be the last time he’d get to see his name on her.

Clint rested his chin on the side of the casket, closing his eyes and taking a deep, ragged breath.

He took her in one last time. The defined muscle that rested beneath the soft pale skin of her arms, the arms that once held him when he learned of his brother’s death. The deep, soulful eyes she only ever let him see, the ones that burned into his every being and saw him for who he truly was, now hidden under their lids. The curves of her chest and hips, the places he’d rest his head when he slept and napped, where his mind would alternately rest for comfort and search for pleasure, never to be felt by his head or hands again. Her heart, the one that beat for him and him alone, never again sounding out a rhythm against his in the night. This, their last moment of closeness, his last moment of connect, to a body whose soul had been taken from him. Whose love had been stolen from him.

There were so many things he regretted. So many little arguments over nothing, fights that could have been avoided, things he’d said he wished he could take back. Moments or rage, minutes of indifference. Things they’d never see eye to eye that didn’t seem to matter anymore. Because nothing seemed to matter anymore.

He had plans. Adventures he wanted to experience with her, places he wanted to visit with her. Days where they’d do nothing but hold each other and read. Walk their dogs. Eat dinner in a comfortable silence, not because they had nothing to say to each other, but because everything they wanted to say didn’t need to be said.

He wanted to grow old with her.

But all these plans, all these adventures, permanently ripped from his clutches. 

“Sir?”

Clint kept his eyes firmly shut, as if not seeing the funeral director in his midst might mean that he wasn’t there.

“Just… one more minute… please.” He choked out.

“People have started to arrive Sir. I’m truly sorry.”

Clint cleared his eyes with his hands once more, knowing he couldn’t handle being in that room, surrounded by people telling him they were sorry.

He took a deep breath, trying to steady his emotions and keep legs from crumbling beneath him. He held onto one of her hands as he adjusted her hair one more time, the waves of redbrown rushing through his fingers one final time.

He swallowed the lump that rose in his throat, his entire body vibrating. The constant shaking seemed normal to him now. He rested his lips on her forehead. Another last he could add to the list.

He whispered so softly not a soul in the room heard his words, another onset of tears finding their way to the surface. He backed away slowly, feeling himself being pulled in all directions. So much pain he had to close his eyes to keep it at bay. He held himself, hands locked over his biceps as he gave a small nod. The director placed his hands at the end of the casket, the squeaky wheels giving way and moving forward as he drove the body of Agent Natasha Romanov out of the mortuary and into the room set for her viewing.

Clint waited in the back until all the guests had arrived before he ducked out and into his Jeep.

This wasn’t the day to face his friends and family.

This was his last day with his wife.


End file.
